Pie Fight

Tear that muther down

An empassioned Simon Jenkins says dismantle the University of London - and while you're at it, take away all its buildings, tear down much of Bloomsbury, and rebuild it all more beautiful than before. It's a well written article.

But that ain't necessarily the same as well argued. Readers point out that in his pursuit of architectural excellence, Simon seems to have forgotten about one tiny little aspect of the university system: the students, particularly those at smaller colleges and who couldn't afford Harvard-style fees at a future, privatised UCL.

As for me? Now that I'm at LSE I halfway think, oh hell, why not dismantle the U of London. But if I were at Goldsmiths, I'd think just the opposite. In these situations, it's probably best to do what will benefit the weaker rather than the stronger. Otherwise, many suffer - and how much more will the few excel? That's a question I can't answer.

Open House London

Is 17-18 September.

Gentrifying Broadway Market

I'd like to write a book or dissertation on gentrification, its losses and gains. A couple of days ago, the kids from the Hackney Independent ranted through my mailslot about how Broadway Market is being destroyed by the middle class invasion. In one way, they have a fair point: it's a pity that a place like Francesca's Cafe can no longer afford the rents there and must close down or move on. The poor folks who run that cafe are in a very dire situation. On the other hand, as Wendy righly and vehemntly points out, Broadway Market used to be not only a dump, but a wasteland. Before the middle classes came into this area, a large percentage of the shops were boarded up. I guess that's because the "working" class just doesn't spend enough money to make a street thrive - they don't have enough disposable income.

Re writing a book on gentrification, there's plenty of fodder to write two almost at once - eg, an academic or analytic piece on gentrification in general, perhaps focusing on one area in particular, but also a much more journalistic style slice of life book, based on, eg, spending a couple of years hanging out in a gentrifying area, and telling the personal stories of the change. I do like doing interviews, even if they do frighten me a bit before I start. Another idea would be to take different neighbourhoods at different stages of gentrification, look at them all, tell lots of personal stories, and analyse what might make them different and the same - eg what are the similarities between Upper St and Holland Park and Broadway Market, and what are the differences? Certainly the anti-gentrifiers argue that gentrification is a monolithic beast, turning high streets or areas into "clone towns". It'd be interesting to look at ways that this is and isn't true.

What's it like to work in an iconic building?

The Guardian asks. The guy at the Swiss Re building makes me want to weep.

Urban regen book in US

Comeback Cities: A Blueprint for Urban America

By DanielGree

From: Books Table

This book by Paul S. Grogan and Tony Proscio is a hopeful look at the rejuvenation of cities all across America. They point out that the grouping of the poor in Urban America was not an accident but was done for the convenience of the bureaucracy that provided services for the poor. They also point out that welfare was a chosen means to help the poor because sending a check was the cheapest and easiest method to use. They argue that the model for cities comebacks is the Bedford Styuvesant Restoration Corp. created by Robert Kennedy, and others, back in the 1960s. Its goals and that of other redevelopment corporations is to use government and private resources to make the lives of constituents better. It is a very enlightening book as well as not too filled with jargon.

Shiny St Paul's

From the Guardian:

That St Paul's Cathedral has been left brighter after its recent restoration is a source of national shame (Interior of St Paul 's - brighter than even Wren saw it, June 10). That its interior was "never as white as it is now" is not due, as is suggested by Martin Stancliffe, the architect responsible for the restoration, to the installation of "new chandeliers and more lights". It is because the stone surfaces have been brutally stripped down by an experimental and controversial chemical cleaning method in the defiance of Wren's intentions. 

He had stipulated that the cathedral's interior should be finished with no fewer than three coats of oil paint. Mr Stancliffe suggests that this was to "protect it from the elements before the roof was put on" when it would seem incontrovertible that the paint had an aesthetic, not a weatherproofing purpose. Moreover, the paint was specially tinted with ochre and black pigments in order to produce a warmer, quieter and more perfectly unified finish.

Today's restorers had been aware of this. As Mr Stancliffe has admitted, they considered carrying out a repainting in order to "unify the interior". This was rejected on the grounds that it "would result in a finish, which to modern eyes, would seem bland and perhaps inappropriate". An architectural masterpiece has been given a crass and historically inappropriate makeover.
Michael Daley
Director, ArtWatch UK

City v burb

Why don't suburbs have any mixed use developments? Kevin Drum figures it's because there are basically two types of people in this discussion: city folks and suburb folk. No one seems to want mixed use.

Interestingly, he points out that residential developments are money pits for governments, consuming far more resources than they bring in.

From the comments:

Kevin,

There's an article from the Washington Post a few years ago that describes why Federal Realty decided to stop building projects like Bethesda Row that have the urban feel you describe. The upshot? It's a systems problem.

From The Washington Post :

A bank can finance a suburban shopping mall and have a good sense for the risks involved; with a development like Bethesda Row, not only is the expense higher, but there are innumerable risks that bankers generally do not know how to quantify. "Real estate finance is a 'keep it simple, stupid' business," said John B. Levy, a Richmond-based real estate investment banker. "When you've got some apartments, some office and some retail all combined into a single project, you've got more moving parts, and that makes it geometrically more difficult to get financing. Three different property types isn't three times as difficult to finance as one type, it's nine times as difficult."

 

We love the Gherkin!

The Prospect debates the worth of iconic buildings, including the Gherkin.

Recommended architecture books

From Two Blowhards:

Let's start with some criticism. Nothing in recent years beats the latest from Nikos Salingaros, Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction (Solingen, Germany: Umbau-Verlag). (It can be ordered here.) I plan to post further on this remarkable book. For now, suffice it to say that Nikos--who has himself posted in this space and who is well known to Blowhards readers--writes architecture criticism of the highest order. I say ''criticism'' rather than ''theory'' because for me his genius lies in his ability to build from the specific to the general, which is the opposite of the tendency of academic theorists of architecture. A few critics in my experience have the ability to describe a building so as to explain how its parts add up to an emotional experience. Ian Nairn could do it. Gavin Stamp can do it, as for example in an amazing essay he wrote in the Spectator in praise of John Simpson's addition to the Queen's Gallery--an addition that is one of the great works of architecture of our time. (Here's a great book on Simpson and the gallery, not by Stamp but by the equally estimable Richard John and David Watkin.) Lewis Mumford could, from a viewpoint very different from my own, do it. Nikos does it. His commentary on Libeskind, on Tschumi, on Derrida, on Charles Jencks is definitive. (Interestingly, of these critics, only Stamp had or has professional training in architecture or architectural history. Salingaros is a mathematician, Nairn was trained as a mathematician, and Mumford possessed no academic degree at all.) A bonus of Nikos's book is that the introduction and chapter annotations were written by someone named Michael Blowhard. The book contains contributions as well from some of the best commentators on architecture: James Stevens Curl, Christopher Alexander, Michael Mehaffy, Lucien Steil, Hillel Schocken, and others--a veritable dream team.

Breathtaking

The newly opened Millau Bridge.